More criticisms have come the way of former president Olusegun Obasanjo
over his letter where he chastised President Muhammadu Buhari and his
administration, claiming the president was preparing to rig the 2019
poll.

In his response to the letter on Tuesday, former Lagos governor and
Co-Chair of the All Progressives Congress Presidential Campaigns,
Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, said Obasanjo was projecting unto the APC the
misconduct he would perpetrate if still in power.

“Yet, the ways of Obasanjo are not those of the APC. And this difference
has meant the better for Nigeria,” Tinubu said in the strongly-worded
letter.

Asiwaju described the former president as an election rigger without peer.

“There is no election which occurred under Obasanjo’s watch or in which
he participated that did not involve cheating on his part. Even the late
President Umaru Musa Yar ‘Adua admitted he was the beneficiary of a
flawed election engineered by none other than today’s vociferous
complainant,” he said.

Tinubu’s riposte personally signed by him, titled “CHIEF OBASANJO – AT
WAR AGAINST HIS OWN DEEDS”, reads: “Former President Obasanjo is many
things to many people; but he is all things unto himself. His recent
contribution to our political discourse wherein he alleges plots to
steer the coming elections shows he benefits from an exceedingly faulty
memory, is purely shameless or has a most wicked sense of humor. Perhaps
all three are facets of his makeup and were equally on display in his
latest prosaic display.

“The crux of his long tirade was the allegation that INEC is poised to
cook the election results. Chief Obasanjo should not get his dander up
and waste good ink for nothing. This election will be a free and open
exercise of the people’s right to choose their leaders. Obasanjo makes
fiery allegations against this right but offers no corroborating
evidence; he presents only reams of words. This is because Obasanjo is
projecting onto the APC the misconduct he would wrought if still in
power. Yet, the ways of Obasanjo are not those of the APC. And this
difference has meant the better for Nigeria.

“Moreover, Chief Obasanjo should be the last to complain about election
rigging. His administration was an unalloyed miscarriage of justice and
of the best aspirations of the Nigerian people. We all know he was not
elected in 1999. He was handed Nigeria on a silver platter; perhaps
because Nigeria was so easily given that he went about treating the
nation as if it was a less than precious thing; he thought it was a
cheap give-away not a privilege to govern this nation.

“This man should have positioned himself to be the father of the nation.
All the goodwill that could be granted a political figure was bestowed
on him. The global economy was such that it fueled our growth. Everyone
wanted Nigeria to succeed after emerging from years of noxious military
rule. Despite the flawed exercise that rendered him president, we all
bit our tongues in hope that he would say and do the right things that
would move Nigeria forward.

“Instead of being a unifying figure as Commander-in-chief, he lowered
himself to being a divisive, vindictive conniver. There was no table
which he neared that he did not upset and overturn. There was no one who
came into his company for any period of time with whom he did not fall
out if he expresses a thought contrary to one of his.

“He tried to convert our young democracy into a one party state. His PDP
boasted that they would rule for 60 uninterrupted years. Never did they
boast that they would govern us well during even one year of the sixty.
He could have placed the economy on the path to durable growth and
shared prosperity through diversification, industrialization and
creation of a social safety net for the poor. Instead, he handed the
economy over to a tight group of cronies, turning what should be a
modern economy into a version of the mammoth trading companies that
dominated the 17th and 18th century. The Transcorp conglomerate was
intended to be a throwback to monopolistic enterprises such as the East
Indian Company wherein a select handful would control the national
economy’s strategic heights.

“We hoped that Obasanjo would personify statesmanship, thus showing the
way to a more benign political culture. Instead, he bickered and feuded
with his vice president and mostly anyone who dared remind him that he
was human and thus infallible.

“Given the vast margin between the good he could have achieved and the
nebulous feats that comprise his true record, Chief Obasanjo is the
person most responsible for the flaws in the Nigerian political economy
since 1999. His ego is as expansive as the firmament but his good deeds
would fit into a modest sachet with ample room to spare.

“The worst of Obasanjo’s record, I have yet to describe. When it comes
to elections, he has been a rigger without peer. There is no election
which occurred under Obasanjo’s watch or in which he participated that
did not involve cheating on his part. Even the late President Umaru Musa
Yar ‘Adua admitted he was the beneficiary of a flawed election
engineered by none other than today’s vociferous complainant. For
Obasanjo to lament over electoral malpractice is tantamount to the ocean
complaining that a few raindrops are causing it to get wet.

“In his writing, Obasanjo alleges the Osun election indicates rigging
will take place in the coming contests. Let’s go straight to the truth,
Obasanjo has no grievance with the process. His personal history
suggests fair process is the least of his concerns. What knocks Obasanjo
off kilter is that he could not dictate the result in Osun. He told
those in the PDP that he held sway in Osun and throughout the Southwest.
They believed him. He led them to defeat notwithstanding the almost
impossible voter turnout in PDP strongholds in that state. Obasanjo can
only win an election when has the final say over the final vote tally.
Otherwise, he is a troubled man.

“In an attempt to relieve his trouble, Chief Obasanjo makes reference to
a joke about INEC. He says, “The INEC was asked if the Commission was
ready for the election and if it expects the election to be free, fair
and credible. The INEC man is reported as saying in response, ‘we are
ready with everything including the results.’” The joke has a touch of
humor; we are glad that Obasanjo is not completely devoid of this most
human of traits. However, he makes a telling omission by failing to give
you the vintage of this bit of sarcasm.

“The jest was not born last week. It’s vintage is circa 2003- a time
when a certain President Obasanjo rode roughshod over INEC. He would
summon the nervous INEC chairman to the Villa, proceeding to hector the
man until he gave way to Obasanjo’s demands. At Obasanjo’s urging, INEC
improperly published fake election results on the gubernatorial race in
Lagos. Not until a public outcry did INEC back away from rigging Lagos. A
similar attempt was made in Lagos in 2007. In essence, for Obasanjo to
laugh at this joke means he has belatedly developed the ability to laugh
at himself.

“If Obasanjo was so committed to free elections, how could he
countenance Atiku’s recent boast of single-handedly rigging elections in
the Southwest. Atiku claimed that he took all states for the PDP but
left Lagos alone due to some misguided affinity for me. By this
statement, Atiku publicly admitted to rigged elections in the SW. Beyond
resort to wholesale rigging, Atiku could never deign to be more popular
and potent in the Southwest than the panoply of good and decent leaders
that guided the defunct AC. Moreover, I can assure you that we did not
need Atiku’s false beneficence to win the elections in Lagos. The people
voted for us and their votes countered the ill-designs Obasanjo and
Atiku set in motion. Thus, if Obasanjo cannot chastise Atiku for
publicly boasting that he rigged elections, then Obasanjo’s display of
righteous indignation is but a magician’s trick.

“His fine words and sentiments come a dozen years too late. These noble
things would have greater effect had he placed them into practice when
he was at the helm of affairs. At that time, he was powerful so he did
as he might. Now that he lacks power, he has taken to preach that which
he never did.

“In his commentary, he mentions that INEC has a record of past rigging. I
wonder if he understands the admission he makes. No other president has
exercised such tight control over INEC for as many years as Obasanjo.
No president has had the domineering relationship with INEC that
Obasanjo enjoyed. If there are reports of past INEC rigging, those
reports are of Obasanjo’s making. It is the irony of ironies for
Obasanjo to complain of the fruit on the table when his was the hand
that planted the tree.

“Chief Obasanjo tries to further confuse matters by pointing to the case
of the CJN’s assets declaration as evidence of future vote-rigging via
tampering with the judiciary. Again, Obasanjo goes into a personality
shift. For years, Obasanjo has boasted of himself as our corruption
fighter nonpareil. The very aim of this current letter is to attack
imagined INEC malfeasance. Yet, with regard to the CJN, he blithely
ignores the large cache of dollars in the CJN’s account and the millions
of dollars that passed through the accounts. Obasanjo seems unbothered
by the unexplained presence of such sums. Perhaps Obasanjo’s nonchalance
regarding the money is that he expected the funds there because he
knows both the origin and reasons for the trove.

“Chief Obasanjo sinks so low as to suggest that the VP, during the
exercise of his official duties, was taking the PVC numbers of market
women and traders. This statement reveals the bilious nature of the man.
Obasanjo even quotes the notorious Bode George in claiming that the VP
was “gutting our collective treasury” by giving loans of N10,000 to
market women under the administration’s empowerment programs.

“What? Giving money to poor people to enhance their lives and escape the
maw of poverty is, by PDP metrics, gutting the collective treasury. If
helping the poor is gutting the treasury, Atiku’s privatizing large
chunks of the economy into his own pocket must have been seen by the PDP
as a vital public service. Jonathan and his Petroleum Minister’s
siphoning government coffers of several billion dollars to enrich the
already-rich must have been viewed by the PDP as the epitome of a social
safety net. Obasanjo’s and the PDP’s disdain for the common person
could not be clearer.

“Obasanjo should be ashamed to even raise this issue. When he was
president, the economy was on an easy sledding due to positive global
trends. Obasanjo did not raise a finger to do anything for the poor. He
and Atiku were champions of trickle-down economics. If anything good
trickled down to the poor it was by accident. Obasanjo left the poor
unattended because he cared nothing for them. Poverty increased under
his cold indifference. Not one meaningful social program was established
during his watch. The banking and pension deregulation he brought were
geared to profit the wealthy CEO’s and managers of these financial
entities. The malpractices attendant to these deregulation fiascos
extinguished the savings of millions of Nigerians. In reliance on these
artifices of Obasanjo and his ilk, many Nigerians were thrust down the
lower rungs of the poverty they so desperately sought to avoid.
Obasanjo’s allies gobbled the savings of the poor and still feast on
them to this day.

“Chief Obasanjo is one of the last people to preach to anyone about
using public funds to care for the poor. He had the gall to fret that
funds should not be given to the urban poor because they are not poor
enough. But his grouse does not show any defect in the administration’s
program. His complaint shows the defect in Obasanjo’s humanity or lack
of it. To complain that some people are not poor enough for his liking
is to reveal that seeing human suffering does not motivate him to cure
it. He would rather that people suffer it the more. Your unease and
distress becomes his entertainment or at least evidence he is superior
to the common man. Watching a laborer struggle against penury is no more
than a spectator sport for Obasanjo.
“The most fantastic of all his claims is that this administration has
returned Nigeria to the days of Abacha. If this were true, the press
would be constantly closed. Obasanjo would be constricted in writing
such letters. Elections would not be upon us. Atiku would not be able to
freely campaign and the diversity of opinion in the public space would
be suppressed.

“For Obasanjo to utter such an outrage is that he hopes lighting strikes
twice. He was ushered into office after Abacha’s demise. He thinks if
he can invoke Abacha’s name, the same thing will happen again. By hook,
crook or utter fantasy, Obasanjo seeks to return to Aso Villa, not as an
irritating, importuning guest but as a long-term resident. He wants to
be back in control. If he cannot be president, then the president better
carve from his office a special room for Obasanjo.

“Obasanjo thinks he is more than the greatest Nigerian. He thinks
himself greater than Nigeria itself. Unless he is allowed to lead the
procession, he will groan, grouse and grit. However, neither President
Buhari nor the progressive APC have much use for his reactionary
policies and his megalomaniac ways. Thus, we shall be forced to endure
more of his letters. But enduring such missives is vastly superior and
small price to pay for not having to endure a repeat of his
unenlightened misgovernance”.https://www.geezgo.com/sps/52754